Elizabeth Lane

Dame Elizabeth Kathleen Lane, born Elizabeth Kathleen Coulborn in Bowden, Cheshire, lived from August 9, 1905, to June 17, 1988. As an English barrister she became the first woman appointed a judge of the County Court, and in 1965 she became the first female High Court judge in England, an appointment that also made her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was also the first female bencher, and she served as a High Court judge until 1979, sitting mostly in the Family Division; her 1965 appointment predated by nine years the appointment of the second woman to the High Court bench, Rose Heilbron, in 1974.